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TLS condemns ’law of the jungle’
2005-09-17 07:28:46
By Guardian Reporter
The Tanganyika Law Society said yesterday that the use of inmates to beat up and cause serious injuries to civilians last Saturday had compromised the role of prisons as behavioural correctional institutions.
TLS noted that the inmates had already been adjudged criminals and the decision to setting them upon innocent and unarmed civilians undermined societal resolve to correct them.
TLS made the observation yesterday in reference to last weekend’s incident in which the Prisons Department used inmates to evict residents of Ukonga in Dar es Salaam.
During the evictions, two journalists and scores of civilians were injured.
The forcible eviction triggered a countrywide uproar from human rights organisations and journalists’ professional bodies, which called for the sacking of Home Affairs Minister Omar Ramadhan Mapuri.
While issuing the statement in Dar es Salaam yesterday, TLS condemned Mapuri for defending the prison officers and the inmates who beat up civilians and journalists last week in Ukonga residential area.
TLS president Kibuta Ong’wamuhana told reporters that, instead of the minister accepting responsibility and apologising, he ’found it appropriate to defend them.’
He called on the government to set up an independent team to probe the activities of the Prisons Department and establish how frequently inmates are used in violent activities.
He said that the TLS had appreciated the formation of a commission to probe the beatings, but added that the composition of the team left a lot to be desired.
’The Tanzania Law Society calls upon the police to act expeditiously in its investigations so that all those who were involved are brought to justice soon,’ he said.
He said that the TLS was disturbed by the use of inmates to enforce illegal evictions.
’Our prisons are correctional facilities and ought to set the highest standards in the rehabilitation of prisoners,’he said.
’What makes it an even a more serious blow to the rule of law is the fact that the brutal beatings were undertaken by a branch of the disciplined forces,’ he said.
Ong’wamuhana said that, by acting in the manner they did, the prison officers substituted the rule of the law with the law of the jungle.
This has to be condemned in the strongest terms possible and the perpetrators of the affront must ultimately be made to answer and face the law, he said.
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